Disclaimer: Dark Angel is not my property, yadda yadda yadda.

Family Relations

By Be Boring

Chapter 11: Letting Go

Through the next couple of days, Jondy hardly moved from her bed. Tinga opened the door and set some food in a couple times a day, but she didn't come in to talk other than one time, where she explained what she had been doing when Jondy was shoving Zack onto the counter. Since they hadn't expected her to wake up for several hours, she had gone out for a walk and had probably been over a mile away when the incident happened. During her short periods of normalcy, Jondy had to press her face into her pillow to keep from looking at her own guilty face in the mirror. How could she have gone after Zack like that? She felt dirty, as though she had actually gone through with it, not to mention angry with herself. So much for self-control.

On what would have been the fourth day of her cycle, she started to notice longer gaps between her heat bursts. By the end of the day, there was well over five hours between them. The next morning, she climbed out of bed and walked into the kitchen. Tinga and Zack were sitting at the table, and they both looked up and froze when she entered the room. "Relax, I think it's over. I haven't felt anything all night."

Tinga stood up and walked over to her. "Are you sure? I don't think we want to take chances here."

"I'm pretty sure. Right now I just really want some breakfast."

They both sat down and a plate of eggs and bacon was pushed in front of her. She started devouring it as fast as she could, even though she sensed the tension in the air. Zack and Tinga both attempted a strained conversation with each other, but something was off. It took a minute for Jondy to figure it out, but when it hit her it was like a semi. Zack was uncomfortable being near her. Not that she blamed him, but she noticed him fidgeting nervously and glancing away every time her eyes landed on him. Somehow it made her feel even guiltier than before. They didn't even have to do anything and their cozy brother/sister relationship was shattered. She understood that there was no blood relationship between them, so it wouldn't have technically been wrong if they had slept together, but it completely ruined the ease they had with each other.

As soon as Tinga left to go to the bathroom, Jondy knew she had to fix this immediately. "Zack, what happened the other day isn't going to change anything, is it?"

He shifted in his seat and folded his hands in front of him like he always did when he was trying to look more composed than he felt. "Why would it? We were out of control, it's not like it was something we really wanted. It was nobody's fault, and I think it's best just to forget it."

"If you want to forget it and act like normal, then why aren't you looking at me right now?"

He sighed and forced his eyes up to meet hers. For some reason the eye contact seemed to soothe him, because a small smile flitted across his face. "Like usual, I can't get anything past you. It's not what could have happened that scares me, it's what did happen. I did something that I've never done before; I deliberately hurt one of you. I knew perfectly well that your back was already injured, but I threw you into that counter anyway. You may have thought that how you hit it was an accident, but I meant for you to land like that. I figured that was the only way to really deter you from me. I've never done anything like that before."

"Look, I'm not holding it against you, so there's no reason for you to blame yourself. I would have done the same thing."

"But I knew exactly what I was doing. It doesn't upset you at all that I could have possibly damaged you for a few weeks? That's what could have happened, you know. With the way you struck the counter, I could have damaged your spinal cord. Your body would have fixed that within a month, of course, but the fact remains that I tried to seriously hurt you. How can that not at least make you think twice about me?"

"Zack, I like to think I've gotten to know you really well in the last couple months, and I know you didn't aim to hurt me that badly. At the time you were just thinking of how you could possibly get me off of you, so you threw me. It didn't occur to you until later that anything really serious could have happened to me, but then you started to second guess your decision until you got to the point where you believed that you had set out for everything to go like it did. Now you're convinced that you are an unfit C.O. and that we'd all be better off without you, even though that's completely untrue. Does that sound about right?"

Now Zack was able to hold steadier eye contact with her without flinching. "Actually, yeah it does. You're a little creepy sometimes, you know that?"

She laughed and walked to the fridge to pour a glass of milk. "Glad to be of service, whether I'm creepy or not. So, where are we going next?"

"I was thinking that I'd take Tinga back home to help her with some concerns she has about Case's development and you could go check on Shayna. I don't think she's feeling well lately, but she refuses to even talk to me when I call her. I want you to see how she's doing. You don't know anything about what's wrong with her, do you?"

You mean other than the fact that she's a few months pregnant with a psycho's baby and she plans on completely destroying your reputation with the group? "No, I don't have any idea what's going on with her. I don't think she likes me very much. Why is Tinga worried about Case?"

"He's showing signs of advanced development and she's worried that Lydecker might come across him. It's hard to tell a boy that age to hide his skills though, he just doesn't understand that he can't let people know he's so smart. I remember all of you as young children, so she wants me to see how similar Case is to the rest of us. Even if he's half as good as us, it's going to raise some flags at Manticore. I'm hoping he's just a regular talented little boy. That was to be expected anyway with Tinga's genes in him, but you would think that Charlie's DNA would filter out a lot of the genetic engineering in his background. I guess I'll have to see him for myself."

"You've been to Tinga's home plenty of times and saw Case, wouldn't you have noticed it without her mentioning anything?"

Zack grimaced slightly and lowered his eyes to the table. "To tell you the truth, I try not to pay any attention to him at all. Sometimes I'll play with him a little bit just to humor Tinga, but for the most part I try not to notice him. He's a constant reminder of how hard it's going to be to keep everyone low. We're all adults, so we can manage fairly well, but kids tend to slip up. Some of the group is getting to a point where they are thinking about settling down, and that means more kids aren't too far into the future. Within the next few years it's only going to get worse, and by the time we're all almost thirty, I'm betting quite a few of us will have at least one child. The next ten years are going to be the hardest, because those children might display traits that will draw Manticore's attention and it's going to be next to impossible to keep everyone hidden. Our own flesh and blood could be taken away and used against us, have you even thought about that? What if in twenty years Case is caught and trained to be a soldier? It's very possible he could destroy all of us, he knows what most of us look like. He could even kill Tinga if his programming was powerful enough. The thought scares me sometimes."

Jondy felt chills race through her; Zack was right, the whole idea was really frightening. This also made her wonder what Shayna's baby was going to be like. Both its parents were quite a bit less than sane, and unlike Case, both its parents would be X5s. There wouldn't be any filtering, it would be a full second generation X5. Would there be something wrong with it? Would it be a killer like its father, or a damaged soul like its mother? How good of a mother would Shayna even be? Even worse, what would happen if Ben found out and became involved with his child's life? On one hand, he could completely annihilate any traces of the kid's sanity, and, on the other hand, having a son or daughter in his life might turn him around and make him somewhat normal. The whole thing was much better to not think about. "Then let's not even talk about it, okay? Let's just take each day as it comes and not look any farther than a year into the future, got it? I think I'll leave later for Shayna's." He didn't need to know that she'd just been there the other week. It seemed that Shayna was taking up a lot of her life lately.

~~~~~

Despite its comfortable appearance, Shayna's house appeared more formidable than ever. Its shadows seemed so much larger than they'd ever been before as she walked up the broken walkway to the front door. Why did the chills seem stronger than ever now? She shook off the eerie hold the house had on her and knocked on the door. It took a few moments, but Shayna reached her with a slightly disheveled appearance that threw off her usual beauty. "You're back already?" she almost gasped, staring at her younger sister with wide green eyes.

What in the world has she been doing? Jondy wondered nervously. "Yeah, I guess I was just really worried about you after my last visit. You seemed so shaken up and I felt bad for leaving you here. Is it alright that I'm back?"

Shayna's eyes darted back and forth so quickly that Jondy wasn't sure she'd seen them move at all, then her face broke out into her usual, plastered-on smile. "Of course it's alright, I just wasn't expecting you so soon. Come on in."

They both headed for the living room, which Jondy realized that she had hardly spent any time in, and sat down on the couch while maintaining a comfortable distance from each other. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Jondy's body tensed up so tightly that she thought a seizure might be coming. Yet, the tremors weren't starting. Something in the room was making her body react, but she couldn't tell just what it was. As Shayna started talking about what she had been doing since their last meeting and how she was feeling in spite of the pregnancy, Jondy started taking in every aspect of her surrounding area. It all looked so normal, but it couldn't be. Her body wouldn't do this for no reason.

It took her almost ten minutes to see what she had failed to notice before. During all of her other visits, she had been mildly impressed by the level of neatness that she had seen in the front hall and Shayna's bedroom, but the kitchen, which she could see directly into from her position on the couch, was in a serious state of disarray. There was even what appeared to be a broken glass on the floor. Either salt or sugar had spilled from its container and had spread all over one of the counters. The final thing that made her realize something was very wrong was a tiny red stain on the edge of that same counter. Shayna or whoever else was here hit that counter pretty hard. It would certainly explain Shayna's wild appearance.

Jondy finally had to break into the middle of Shayna's rant about how happy she was that the morning sickness was fading. "I hate to break in like this, but I need to make a call. Do you mind if I go into the back?"

Shayna seemed to glance around, but she nodded. "Go ahead, but you might be better off going outside. Reception isn't great in this house."

Jondy shrugged and headed for Shayna's bedroom, taking a good glance into the kitchen along the way when Shayna wasn't looking. Upon closer inspection, she saw several more tiny red spots dotting the counters and walls. What had happened in there? Rather than walk all the way to Shayna's bedroom, she slid into the bathroom and headed for the tiny window. Peering through the blinds, she could see some movements in the brush around the house. There had to be at least ten soldiers on this side of the house alone. God, Shayna didn't actually contact Manticore, did she? But she hadn't called either Jondy or Zack to lead them into a trap, so what was the point? Suddenly, the shower curtain rustled slightly. As fast as she could, Jondy whipped the curtain to the side to find herself face to face with Ben.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed.

He grabbed her arm, dragged her into the shower stall, and closed the curtain mere moments before a soldier popped his head up to look through the window. "I came to see Shayna once I found out where she was, and it's a good thing I showed up when I did. Apparently her boyfriend got a good look at her barcode the other day and was talking about it with his sister, who happens to be a scientist that distantly knew about the Manticore operation. Why didn't you tell me she was pregnant? I asked you how she was, why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think it was something you needed to know, even though I figured out later that I was wrong. Does Manticore know you're here?"

He shook his head. "They have no clue, not even Shayna knows. I got here earlier this morning, but Shayna was sleeping so peacefully that I didn't want to wake her up. Then the soldiers showed up and I hid here. When you showed up, they all went into hiding to see who was visiting her. What are you doing here?"

"I needed to check up on her, especially in the condition she's in now. Did you know that she lied about her baby?"

"How so?" He stared at her blankly, obviously not understanding what she meant.

"She didn't tell us you were the father, she told us it was Zack." As his eyes widened in protest, Jondy held up a hand to silence him. "Apparently she was angry with Zack for separating the two of you, so she led me to believe that he had raped her and that the baby was his. She also made it sound like she wasn't nearly as far along as she really is, but it would have become obvious even if we hadn't figured it out. To tell you the truth, I was worried that once her plan backfired that she would contact Manticore and tell them everything she knows about Zack and I just for revenge. That's actually what I thought was going on when I showed up here."

Ben could only shake his head in disbelief. "Are you sure about all of that? Maybe she's just troubled and really believes what she's saying, because none of that sounds like her. I got to know her so well a few months ago, and I just can't believe she would do anything like that."

"Well, believe it. It's not important right now though, she didn't plan for this to happen. So, any brilliant ideas about how we're going to get out of this?"

He peered around the edge of the shower curtain. "Not really, we're completely outnumbered. Shayna's in no condition to get into a serious fight, and you and I won't be able to take them all out, especially since they're all armed with tasers. I don't know this area well enough to know how to sneak past them all."

A large crash and Shayna's shriek from the next room tossed aside any escape plans, sending both of them scrambling for the door. Jondy was the first into the hallway and could clearly see three soldiers struggling to drag Shayna towards her front door. Before Ben could follow her, she shoved her cell phone into his hands and forced him back into the bathroom. "They already know me, so it won't be as dangerous if they see me again, but they don't know what you look like yet. Call Zack and tell him we need him here as fast as he can make it. Just hit redial, he was the last number I called." Without giving him a chance to protest, she dashed into the front hallway where Shayna was putting up a larger fight than Jondy thought she had in her right now. None of the soldiers saw Jondy approach, and none of them knew what had hit them as they all collapsed from severe blows to their head.

"Is there any way out of here that they won't know about?"

Shayna's eyes were wild with panic, and it didn't surprise Jondy when she shook her head. "No, they'd see us no matter where we tried to get out. My God, I should have listened to Zack when he told me it was dangerous to live with an ordinary man. Brandon didn't even mean to give me away, he had no idea what my barcode meant. No one is going to get here soon enough to help us, are they?"

Jondy knew it wasn't likely, but she forced a stiff smile and nodded. "Help will be on the way, don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you, I promise." How could she keep a promise like that when her instincts were telling her that they wouldn't be getting away this time?

A loud, commanding, and horribly familiar voice boomed from the front yard through a megaphone. "Come out of the house with your hands up, and neither one of you will be harmed. This can be done peacefully, without either side sustaining any injuries. I trained you to make good decisions, and coming out right now without a fight would fall under that category." Jondy suddenly wanted to run out and laugh right in Lydecker's face. Neither side sustaining injuries? She looked down at the three limp bodies of the soldiers. I think it's a little late for that. Did he really think they were just going to go back to Manticore quietly? Maybe he's getting senile in his old age.

Shayna looked absolutely terrified at the sound of Lydecker's voice. "Jondy, I don't want to go back there, please don't let them take me back," she whispered urgently. Jondy reached out and gave her hand a comforting squeeze.

"Don't worry, I won't leave you." She led her terrified older sister into the living room as Lydecker repeated his demands, sounding slightly more insistent this time. What were they going to do? Oh no, I know where everyone is! What if they torture me for information? I don't think I could handle that. Jondy's mind was racing now. She had been the quickest to repeat her barcode when that laser was fixed on her eye as a child, so how long would it take before Lydecker had all the information he needed to recapture all the X5s? Short of suicide, she only had one option left open to her, and that was to make herself forget. If she didn't remember anything, she couldn't say anything.

Even as the soldiers forced their way into the house and grabbed a desperately battling Shayna, Jondy sat blankly on the couch, staring at the wall. The soldiers kept their distance from her, apparently unsettled by her lack of movement. She didn't hear Shayna screaming her name as they removed her from the house, nor did she notice Lydecker finally come in. He kneeled down in front of her, just out of her reach in case of a surprise attack. "210, look at me." She defiantly continued to stare at the wall, now aware he was here but refusing to acknowledge it. He frowned and repeated his command again, but she still refused to look at him. Finally, he gave a nod to one of the men, who turned his taser on her and fired. Jondy barely jumped, but she turned to make eye contact with Lydecker. An odd smile crossed her face, and she even managed a small laugh.

"I hardly remember you now, but I know you're going to ask me things that I'll never be capable of telling you."

Lydecker rocked back on his heels as his eyes widened with realization. "Can you tell me what that means?" he asked softly, sounding so paternal that Jondy's nearly erased mind wasn't sure why she saw him as an enemy.

She cocked her head to the side, feeling so confused. "I'm not sure, I think I made myself memorize it before I forgot everything else. What questions are you going to ask me?"

He sighed and rose back to his feet, once again nodding to his men. This time they carefully lifted her up and led her out to a large military truck where Shayna was already tranquilized and cuffed to a couple of thick rings attached to the side of the truck. Jondy sat down where she was directed to and watched with little interest as they cuffed her to another set of rings. Lydecker sent a strangely sad gaze in her direction, then left to sit in the front of the truck. Jondy's mind was completely swimming in confusion, but she knew that it was important for her to leave everything forgotten. After nearly an hour on the road, she finally allowed herself to slip into a deep, dreamless slumber.

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